Sunday, July 17

How could that many helicopters go missing from the Turkish military base? Let's hope it's just an inventory accounting error. But the conjecture, reported as breaking news today by CNNTurk and picked up by Sputnik, is that they were stolen by the coup plotters in readiness for Phase 2 of the coup. I must say for a coup that was reported on Saturday as thwarted there's been quite a bit of breaking news regarding coup plotters who don't seem to know they've been thwarted. Spuptnik alsopassed along earlier today that Reuters cited a Turkish official who said that coup participants clashed with Turkish police at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul and near an airbase in Konya. The official, who didn't want to be named, assured Reuters that the situation at the airbase is under control and that while there were clashes at the airport the plotters surrendered peacefully.(No, Sputnik didn't provide the link to the Reuters report, and I'm not going to take time to find it.)I also must say that for a coup that was supposed to involve only about 100 people, the Turkish government is taking no chances, having arrested at last count 6,000 people including "2,745 judges and over 2,800 soldiers in the Turkish military including Erdogan's top military adviser," according to Sputnik's helicopter report.

The latest, again from Sputnik, which I suspect is having a ball watching the coup story, is that Turkey's prime minister seems to have threatened to declare war on the United States if Obama doesn't turn over Gulen to Turkish authorities. Gulen continues to maintain that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot:

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim threated to go to war with any country that would "stand by" exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, a resident of Pennsylvania in the United States who Washington refuses to extradite citing a lack of evidence that he was behind the attempted overthrow of the Erdogan government.

This appears to be a pointed threat against the United States with an implicit demand that Washington must extradite Gulen or face Ankara’s wrath. The provocative comments came after Turkish Labor Minister Suleyman Soylu shocked the world by accusing the America of manufacturing the overthrow effort.

As to how things are going for the U.S./NATO at Incirlik, things seem to be back to normal except there's no electricity. No reports of missing nukes. The good news is that by the time I publish this there will probably be another story. About what's going on. At Incirlik.

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